Instagram makes it easy to shoot and share photos with friends. In fact, for a lot of young people, it's the social media app of choice. And, it seems, someone is taking advantage of that.
Pleasanton Unified School District emailed parents a social media warning about Instagram on Thursday. The district says students have reported receiving messages from an account outside the school community, requesting that they send inappropriate pictures of themselves in exchange for pictures of the account holder.
"That worries me a lot. I'm going to talk to my daughter as soon as she's done with the [softball] game," said parent Tiffany Chapman. She hadn't seen the email yet, but has already talked to her daughter, Zoey, about what not to do on social media. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. I'm not too concerned that she would ever respond to it, but we'll talk to her about it, definitely."
Zoey is a senior at Amador Valley High School, like her teammate Jamie Altman. Altman doesn't know why someone would ask for inappropriate photos over Instagram because the private messaging feature is fairly new.
"Not a lot of people even see it because it's not that popular and not a lot of people use it," said Altman.
She hasn't been asked for any photos, but if she is contacted, she said, "I'd probably just ignore it, especially if it's someone I didn't know and I hope that others would do the same."
The district says police are working with Instagram to figure out who's behind the Instagram account in question.
